The invention relates to a method for coding human speech for subsequent audio reproduction thereof, said method comprising the steps of deriving a plurality of speech segments from speech received, and systematically storing said segments into a data base for later concatenated readout. Memory-based speech synthesizers reproduce speech by concatenating stored segments; furthermore, for certain purposes, pitch and duration of these segments may be modified. The segments, such as diphones, are stored into a data base. For later reproducing the speech, many systems, such as mobile or portable systems, allow only a quite limited storage capacity, for keeping low the cost and/or weight of the apparatus. Therefore, source-coding methods can be applied to the segments so stored. Such source coding will then however often result in a relatively degraded segmental quality when the segments are concatenated and/or their pitch and/or duration are modified. It has in consequence been found necessary to combine reduced storage requirements with a speech quality that is less degraded in such a source coding organization.